


Rebranding

by Parsnik



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Character, Fake Science, M/M, Roleswap, lots of headcanons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 04:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13873347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parsnik/pseuds/Parsnik
Summary: How Blackwatch Commander Morrison became Soldier: 76





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Writing is very difficult for me because of some brain stuff (I do it anyway because I like talking about the characters) so this is very short and every chapter will be very short. Thanks for your patience.
> 
> I'm not sure where the r76 roleswap AU came from but I've seen a lot of it around- here's my take on it!

After the explosion at Watchpoint Zurich, after watching his fiancé disintegrate to ash before his eyes, after a week waiting to die from burns and blood loss and shattered bones and then a month or so waiting to die from alcohol consumption - after _all_ that - Jack Morrison decides he doesn't want to be Jack Morrison anymore.

It's not the first time in his life he's thought something similar. Most people wish they could be somebody else at some point, if only to be richer or prettier or have a better job. Morrison has had a few extra reasons on top of that. The whole world knowing his face because he spent a few years stopping the robot apocalypse, for example, is something that he (as a black ops agent with undercover work to do) could have done without in years past.

Regardless, he's had enough and he can't do it anymore. Jack Morrison is a dead war hero (and/or war criminal) with an ocean of regrets and frustrations and heartache and broken promises. He needs to go. No-Longer-Jack-Morrison hasn't been able to properly kill _Jack Morrison_ despite his efforts, so he's just going to abandon him by the wayside and pick a new person to be instead.

He was getting restless anyway.

 _Soldier_ isn't a difficult name to settle on. It had been his job (in one way or another) for more than 30 years and he's pretty sure it's the kind of thing he's going to keep on doing, if only because he can't really think of anything else he is particularly good at.

Jack Morrison had been called "Soldier" too, sometimes. By his teammates when missions got long and exhausting ( _chin up, soldier boy! This is nothing!_ ) By Reyes, teasingly in private, when the two of them wanted Jack to do as he was told ( _I'm gonna teach you some respect, soldier, would you like that?_ ) And most of all by himself, in his head, when he hated the things he couldn't help but feel ( _pull yourself together, bitch, you're a fucking soldier._ )

Switching to using the word as his entire identity won't be too difficult.


	2. Chapter 2

Soldier's first task is to find a way to keep himself busy. He can't bear to listen to the thoughts in his head anymore. Not only that, but now that he isn't spending his waking hours blind drunk (pun intended), the usual anxieties about making it through a week without some kind of plan and routine are making themselves known.

At first it's easy. There are certain necessities he knows he's going to need and others he won't be comfortable without, and he has to establish places he can store it all and places he can sleep safely, and to get his hands on a good amount of cash, and he'll need backups of backups for all of that. Years ago, during the crisis, their Strike Team had taken to calling him _the Boy Scout_ due to his determined need to be ready and prepared for anything that could go wrong, but it had paid off for him so many times - both back then and throughout his Blackwatch career - that there wasn't a chance he would ever do things differently.

At the top of the list is a tactical visor. Something had slashed his face up pretty badly at Zurich and the scars are wide and lumpy, pulling and distorting his features because Soldier had made no effort to close the wounds. One eyelid only opens halfway thanks to the new twist of his brow, and the other eye won't focus anymore, giving him nothing except vague patches of colour - although he doesn't know enough to tell if that's to do with the gashes or if it's an injury to the eye itself. Whichever it is, his depth perception is completely ruined (something he'd discovered while wondering for a brief moment how a bottle could float in the air before it hit him in the face) and there is no way he'll be able to aim a gun without an aid anymore.

If you have a modern enough weapon, one of the things a tac visor can do once it's been calibrated is to display a mark on your view of the world to show where your gun is pointed. It was a feature that jokingly earned tac visors the name "laser pointers" by his recruits, but it's an extremely handy piece of tech.

If he wants accuracy he'll have to get his hands on a weapon that doesn't use physical ammunition. You can't trust a bullet to go in a precisely straight line, especially over long range, making your "laser pointer" fairly useless unless you're firing the old omnic-tearing pulse rounds or one of the many new sci-fi-esque kinds of weaponry that R&D departments all over the world had been excitedly creating over the last decade or so. For the first time since his partner died - since months before that, even - Soldier feels a glimmer of, not happiness, exactly, but... satisfaction.

Hmm. He has an excuse to get his rifle back.


End file.
